I SING THE BODY ELECTRIC (OR NOT) -- Why I fear electricity

 

I fear electricity and electrical storms.  At my worst, I hover under the stairwell during storms.  I flinch with each lightning strike at my best. This is at least understandable to those around me who go about their normal business without a quiver.  But my phobia about plugging stuff into electrical sockets is downright peculiar, not to mention inconvenient, and it hasn't improved with time.  

Those who have read Precious Jewels, a Seventh-Day Adventist Family Saga and Fireflies know that my grandfather, an aunt, and an uncle were all struck by lightning, and there are more distant members of the family who share in this legacy of the stricken by lightning on the Denton side of the family.  One of my earliest memories is of my Uncle Lester lifting his t-shirt to show me the zigzag lightning mark on his lean torso.  

I remember coastal storms where the air hummed with electrical charge. It was during one of those storms that a ball of electricity wandered out of an electrical socket between my mother and me when I was at the crawling stage of life.  "Don't move!" cried my mother, and I was obedient, or else I might number myself among the family stricken. I admit I probably don't remember this incident, but my mother told the story so often that I can see it in my mind.  This isn't the only reason I don't trust outlets.  I remember clearly Grandma Denton yanking an entire electrical outlet in flames from the wall. (Grandpa Denton's wiring was among the first in the Green Swamp, but it was a bit eccentric.) 

But that is mild in comparison to what happened later. Two of the most terrifying incidents in my life involved electricity. 

The first incident was when my parents, driving home one rainy night from Wilmington NC, tried to pass a store that was burning in a tiny one-street town, and drove into a hail of falling electrical wires.  Daddy and I have compared memories of this incident over the years.  Daddy's reflexes were normally, er, lightning fast, but he admits that the situation overtook us so quickly and in such a horrifying manner that he froze at the wheel, and we went neither forward nor backward for a period of time which we disagree upon.  Child time and adult time being different, Daddy says it was less than a minute.  I swear that I counted backwards from 100 to 1 before I took action to save myself.  When I saw that we were still sitting there and the wires were still going crazy around us, I opened the car door, and leaped about twenty feet (again, kid math) and started running in superhuman bursts to safety, dancing over wires that hissed like snakes and soaring over fallen branches that writhed like prehistoric monsters.

I was nearly clear of the conflagration when Daddy yelled at me to get back into the car, which he later agreed was probably unwise, but who has the luxury to think these things out while a catastrophe is occurring?  I obeyed, because that was the way my parents trained me.  I turned around and faced the snapping jaws and hissing snakes again and leaped back into the car. All I remember for certain immediately after that was that the car was now moving and Daddy was informing me that I could have been killed the second I left the car if a wire had been touching the metal.  One thing has remained with me, other than the fear of electricity. I cannot forget that I abandoned my family in order to save my own life.  It was pure logic.  I could not save them, so I acted in order to save myself. 

The next terrifying event happened about 25 years later when Kevin and I were trying to bring our first home up to code.  Those who know us well already know that we are insane, but for those who know us less well, I will mention that we moved into a derelict house on the side of Lookout Mountain.  The hundred-year-old house had no doors or windows, plumbing or electricity, and we squatted there until we had permission to inhabit temporarily; and, without any money to speak of, determined to bring it up to code so we could get a mortgage on it before we were thrown out.  

At the same time, we were under attack by the outlaw family who had once inhabited the burnt shell of a cabin next door to "our" house, and had a weird fixation on the whole property.  It was they who had stripped the house we were in, and probably they who had tried to burn it down (judging by the burn hole in one bedroom and the scorch marks in the hall), and it was they who kept creeping around, sabotaging and burgling us.  But we were determined save the house and live in it. 

Well, we required electricity in order to run power tools to repair the house, so Kevin ran a wire from our fuse box into the fuse box of the empty house on the other side of us (with permission of the absent owner).  All went well until the outlaws set another fire to the already-burnt cabin back on the other side.  While three fire trucks and the general hubbub around them had our attention focused on the cabin, one of the arsonists sneaked between our house and the house that hosted the electricity and cut the wires in between, probably intending to steal them for the copper.  This could have killed them which would have served them right, but there is no accounting for the behavior of electricity.  The fire trucks had left the cabin and gone down the mountain when we discovered more fire-- wicked, billowing black smoke and brilliant sparks erupting from the fuse boxes of our house and  the house we had plugged into, as a result of the severed connection in between. 

It was the Wilmington highway all over again, only this time we were about to burn down two houses.  "We'd better call the fire trucks back," I said, but Kevin reminded me that the fuse boxes currently blowing up were illegally connected.  Personally, I might have preferred being hauled off to jail than to watch Kevin wrap a shirt around his face and plunge into hell to disconnect the bare wires from an exploding fuse box.  I had a broom in my hand ready to try to knock him away if he got electrocuted, but I can't swear what I would have done if he'd electrified because half my mind was on the Wilmington Highway, and we all know what my instinct was there.

These are only the most dramatic of the traumas that feed my oversensitivity to all things electrical.  In addition to that, I have had two microwaves blow up on me for no discernible reason.  No, I didn't put metal or other forbidden objects into the microwave.  No, I didn't do anything stupid or against the instructions.  It is one of the unsolved mysteries of the universe, and apparently more rare than seeing a UFO for I have yet find anyone else who admits to having had a microwave blow up for no apparent reason.  (much less two microwaves)

So the trauma of electricity has happened and re-happened in various horrific incidents throughout my life, giving me more than enough reason to have developed a full-blown, embarrassing and inconvenient aversion not only to lightning storms but to the normal things that people do with electricity.  I haven't given up on overcoming my problem even though I recognize that this could be more than a phobia--rather, it is a deep-seated reasonable reaction to repeated trauma related to electricity.  

I have to work on the problem in my own way and in my own time.  There are times when I think I'm almost cured, but one unexpected spark can send me reeling back to my original condition. It cannot be forced. It cannot be willed. So I just carry on, face my fears when I can face them, and give myself permission to retreat when it is too hard.  I spare myself from the stress of electrical sparks by using power strips with on and off switches wherever possible. One learns to be creative in order to function in a world where everything runs with electricity.

But in the meantime, if you need something plugged straight into the wall, and can't reach it yourself, and I'm sitting right there… 

…well…

…don't look at me. 

Carolina Mourning Dove

I can't imagine life as a person who isn't driven to create.  When I was younger, I wasn't convinced that my talents were really gifts because they never gave me a moment's peace and not that much obvious reward.  A part of me always knew that because of my creativity, I would never suffer boredom because I am constantly experiencing things with newborn eyes, ever preoccupied with what to do about what I have witnessed, seen, experienced.  Not being bored is a good thing.  Bored people are sad, dull creatures.  I was delivered from that.  My creativity also helped me remain somewhat sane. I have always had a place to channel the stuff that makes some people go bonkers, become axe-murderers, and other destructive possibilities.  I don't claim complete and total sanity, but I am steady enough as I go that people forgive my eccentricities as being something cool rather than deranged.  That is a good thing.

One thing I don't consider myself is a poet, although I have written verse all my life.  My first real, honest-to-goodness published work was a poem, so maybe that counts for something.  But I never took seriously the idea of trying to get someone to publish more of my poems much less to self publish.  I am going to blame my Aunt for the upcoming book, she who is "Garnet" in Precious Jewels, A Seventh-Day Adventist Family Saga.  It is her fault that I wrote Church School Blues, also, so she deserves full credit for pushing me into this new endeavor.  Because of her, I finally looked at my collection of poems that span literally a lifetime, and they fall into two clear categories for the most part.  I'll tell you about the second category later, but the first category is that of poems of longing for coastal North Carolina, written from the age of 16 and continuing through all my decades in which I considered myself an exile from my true home.

There are thirteen poems in Carolina Mourning Dove, with photographs and drawings.  In some ways this is the most personal book I have put out there for all to see because in the poems I opened my heart and wept onto the pages. If you have ever been homesick, if you have ever been an exile, the poems of Carolina Mourning Dove will speak to you and cry with you.

I will let you know when it is available online.  First I have to get a proof copy and see if my aunt approves.

WHEN THE SNOW CAME TO DIXIE

Everyone knows by now that a big snowstorm has crippled the Southern U.S.  Now that the danger is mostly over, people are saying how poorly everyone with any authority handled the situation, ignoring the fact that no one, not even the weather bureau could predict the exact time or quantity of the storm to come.  Everyone made their own choices that day. No one was certain which was the right one, not even the police who were expected to be everywhere simultaneously and are now being criticized for failing to do so even though it was not physically possible; not even the heads of schools; nor the mayors of cities, and certainly not we who felt, nearly to a man, that we would be cowardly not to get into our cars that morning and go to where we normally go.  Despite the warnings, despite the knowledge that a storm was coming, very highly likely, very soon.  

Not seeing a snowflake in sight, most chose to continue life as normal, which they regretted a few hours later when the snow and ice came swiftly, turning the streets into frigid parking lots, separating children from their parents.  It was a sort of Pompeii scenario where people were caught in action and then unable to move, frozen in place for eternity, but most of us in the American South thankfully got up alive from our positions and eventually made it home, eventually were united.  Thankfully, above the voices of spoiled brats who expect everything to be taken care of perfectly at all times and complain when mere human beings take charge, we also hear stories of courage and generosity.  Those are the stories that will endure.

All of this reminds me of my own story in a long ago January when my grandmother died.  We had no choice but to get into our car and venture into the storm because the family needed us in another state.  I will never forget the huge, motionless trucks lying on their sides, as we moved perilously through an eerie and treacherous landscape, our hearts already breaking.  Here is the excerpt from CHURCH SCHOOL BLUES of our journey through the snow that January:

Part of the selling point of moving over here <to Chattanooga from coastal North Carolina> was that I would get to see snow. I have seen snow only twice in my life—once the canal froze solid! I was told that it snows in Chattanooga a lot more often, but so far, not one single flake has appeared. This is very disappointing and I am wondering if perhaps I was given false advertising.

Christmas comes, and I am still hoping for snow. We open the rest of the presents that Aunt Garnet brought Thanksgiving. We get two long distance phone calls, which are very expensive. We can talk for only sixty seconds before the charge starts doubling and tripling and quadrupling itself. One of the calls is from Aunt Faith and the other is a big surprise because it's from Grandma. She was still learning how to use her phone when we left, and now she is calling long distance! The seconds fly by. We have hardly heard their voices before they are gone again, into the cold winter distance that separates the Green Swamp from Chattanooga. 

Then on the twelfth of January, I see a few snowflakes before the sun goes down, but it is so cold that I don't stand around outside trying to call more flakes. In one hour, I can see through the window that the ground is completely covered and it is pouring down sleet with the snow. We are toasty inside the Duplex on Dupont because we have ceil heat. It drifts in gentle waves down from the ceiling all over the house. Always before, we had heaters you had to crowd around to get warm. We had a wood heater when I was little, and then oil. After we came to S. Saint Marks, there were heaters built right into the walls which was pretty nice, but this all-over heat is like a cozy blanket.

About 9:30, Daddy opens the kitchen door and says we have four inches of snow and there is no end in sight.

"Close the door, honey!" shrills Mother when a cold blast flies into the house, and Daddy is glad to oblige. "Brrrrrr!"

It's hard to settle down with so much excitement, but the house rocks gently with the wind, and the walls shift and the floors crackle with the cold outdoors, and it's like bedding down in a warm igloo.

The phone rings at about 1:30 in the morning, waking us all up. It rings and rings, and I can hear my parents stirring and mumbling, until Daddy pads down the hall in his bare feet to the phone.

"Honey, you better come to the phone," says Daddy to Mother.

I can hear Mother struggling with her bathrobe, and she says in a thin voice, "Hello?" And then, "Oh, my soul!"

Suddenly I'm on my feet beside them, not knowing how I got there, and Mother is sobbing. The last time I heard her cry like that was when she got the news that Jacky was killed in Viet Nam. The time before was when Grandma's old yellow cat, Goldie, killed the ten baby rabbits.

Daddy turns to me and says, "Your Grandma Denton is dead."

He has his hands full taking care of Mother who is sagging against him and still crying into the phone, so I creep back down the hall to my bed and sit there on top of the quilt that Grandma made, listening as Mother brokenly tells Daddy that Grandma had the flu, but she has always been healthy and nobody thought it was serious. She had been pretty sick with it, sure, but Aunt Faith was taking care of her and Grandpa was right there—but in the middle of the night she gasped for breath and just died.

Grandma's mother, my Great-Grandma Pearl, lived into her eighties, but Grandma was only just turned sixty-nine years old. She was planning to teach at least ten more years because she had promised God to devote her entire life to teaching. In those ten summertimes, her granddaughter in Tennessee is supposed to come stay with her and Grandpa in their cabin near the canal.

But summer is long gone and far away, and there are twelve inches of snow on the ground in Chattanooga. The ice and snow are still falling, as we throw clothes into suitcases and drive into the storm in search of North Carolina. Finally, after months of longing to go home, after months of dreaming of snow, I am getting both things at the same time. But the snow has become a blizzard, and home has lost its light.

Daddy manipulates our speed through his varying pressure on the gas pedal and avoids using the brakes, so we keep our traction on the snow-thickened highway while other drivers lose theirs. We pass cars that have braked too hard and skidded into snow banks, and we thread through the hulking shapes of tractor trailer rigs which are mostly lying on their sides.

Mother is sobbing about throwing away the last pie her mother will ever give her. She says she would have waited to move out of the Green Swamp if she'd have known that she would never see her mother again. And on and on, varying her weeping with attempts to rest. She has already cried up a migraine headache.

In the back seat, I am silent, chewing my bottom lip until its bleeds, but I cannot cry. Our car is a lone bubble of life, moving through a Salvador Dali painting that mirrors the unnatural landscape of my life.

--CHURCH SCHOOL BLUES

Pictured: Me in the CHURCH SCHOOL BLUES days.

The Third Alternative

An unbelievable quantity of nonsense comes across my Facebook page from friends who forward what appear, on first glance, to be wise sayings to live by.  I find myself picking apart a great many of them, after which I am probably perceived to be a curmudgeon who will leave no good idea unpunished.  I don't care who uttered the quote.  I am as likely to attack Einstein and Plato as your next-door blogger.

I try to control myself, I really do, with varying degrees of success.  So I thought perhaps if I am to have any online friends left that I would begin to publish my own words of wisdom and leave their forwarded wisdom alone.  It is true that I haven't come up with an idea to rival the Theory of Relativity, but I know something about something, and if I keep on at the rate I'm going, I'll soon be to the age where I might qualify to possess a sage's wisdom.

And so I shall presume.

And in so doing, perhaps I can occupy myself so as not to attack the likes of Einstein and Plato and even Mother Theresa, complaining of their seesaw thinking.

An example of seesaw thinking is the either-or choice:  If you are this, then you cannot be that.  If you are on the up end, you're not on the down end.  The possibility of a balanced seesaw is ignored.  You must be up or down, and there is no third alternative such as being on the swings or slides, and not interacting with the seesaw at all.  Such quotes often start out "There are only two ways to...."

A close relative of seesaw thinking is all-inclusive thinking.  These quotes usually have the word "all" in them.  All something is this, without exception.  All immigrants.  All Christians.  All Liberals.  All women.  All-inclusive thinking is the birthplace of prejudice.  When we don't know the individuals, we tend to speak in terms of "all", and upon this comes the first the stereotype and soon along comes the paper tiger that must be destroyed.

Most of the quotes that raise my hackles fall under these two categories.  At the risk of being all-inclusive, I will say that I have observed them coming from "all" belief systems and political persuasions.  As a result, I offend everyone, as I run, tilting my sword equally at quotes that assure me that all Republicans, all vegetarians, all animal lovers, all all all....  I don't believe in all, probably because I have been the exception to so many rules.  I am the third alternative in a two-alternative universe.

Here is my first constructive response.  It is inspired by a post I saw recently that assures us that we aren't as broken as we think we are even though we may have "a couple scars and a couple bad memories," and that all great heroes do.  I like the gist of the quote, that heroes are scarred by definition.  What I dislike is the way it downplays the damage a person may have endured, minimizing it as merely a couple scars and a couple bad memories.  I dislike the sweeping generalization that we aren't as broken as we think we are, for some of us are exactly that broken, perhaps more so than we think we are, and denial does not help heal us.

But rather than attack the post, and thus the person posting it, I have sheathed my sword and created my own words of wisdom.